Chris Hughton claims Norwich are developing into the "secure unit" they must be to survive. After failing to register a victory in their first seven league games, they have secured two in the last three since the international break following Saturday's home win over Stoke.

Norwich have also tightened up at the back, returning two successive clean sheets at home in their revival – a stark contrast to earlier in the campaign when they leaked goals on a regular basis – and Hughton feels the signs are positive for the battles ahead. "We are not making the individual errors now that we had been," the Norwich manager said.

"In the games where we conceded a lot of goals, we let them in at bad times and because of that you have to open up a bit to try to get back into the game, as a consequence of that we conceded more. Now we look more compact, we are not scoring the amount of goals we would like or making life easy for ourselves but you can't have everything. At the moment, though, we are looking a fairly secure unit."

They had looked to build on their midweek Capital One Cup tie, when a much-changed side edged past Tottenham and into the quarter-finals.Norwich broke the deadlock just before half-time, when Bradley Johnson flicked in a well-delivered free-kick from Robert Snodgrass. The set piece came after a foul was awarded against full-back Andy Wilkinson – much to the disbelief of the Stoke bench.

Stoke's long search for an away league victory continues, the last success coming at Blackburn in January. The Stoke manager, Tony Pulis, felt let down by the match officials, lamenting what Stoke saw as a poor call in the buildup to Norwich's goal as well as the decision of the referee, Andre Marriner, to show Charlie Adam a yellow card in the first half for diving. Adam looked to have been pushed over by Canaries defender Javier Garrido.

However, Pulis also accepted his side have to make the most of the openings they were able to create – notably in the second half when Jon Walters's point-blank effort was parried by John Ruddy before the substitute Kenwyne Jones headed straight at the goalkeeper and then dragged a close-range shot wide.

"We did not deserve to lose," Pulis said, "but we have been like that for five or six matches. We have to start winning games."

About this article

Chris Hughton hails Norwich as a 'secure unit' after victory over Stoke

This article appeared on p6 of the Sport section of the Guardian
on Sunday 4 November 2012.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 21.22 EST on Sunday 4 November 2012.
It was last modified at 08.50 EDT on Thursday 19 June 2014.
It was first published at 18.00 EST on Sunday 4 November 2012.